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Zen Internet was delighted to once again show success at the ISPA (Internet Services Providers' Association) Awards! Zen was selected as the winner for Best Dial up, Best Business Email and was commended in the Best Business ISP category at a glittering awards ceremony at the Marriott Hotel in London on Thursday 15th February.
This follows on from two successful years at the ISPAs for Zen, which began by the ISP triumphing in the 'Best Light Business Broadband 2005' category as the judges felt that customer service and support at the ISP was highly rated. The ISPA Awards are unique, as they are awarded to people and organisations in the industry by their peers and reflect the broad nature of the service provider sector. Last year Zen scooped a variety of different ISPAs, including Best Business ISP, all demonstrating Zen's continued commitment to delivering consistent high quality services and customer support.
The awards gained by Zen this year praised the ISP for investing in the latest technology to improve customer service, with a special mention for the dedicated service that Zen provides to Apple Mac users.
Of the Best Business Email Award an ISPA spokesperson commented;
“Email plays a critical role in the day-to-day running of any business. Zen provides a complete range of email solutions for all types of businesses. The judges felt that Zen’s security, 24-7 support and administration tools were exactly what any business requires from their email package.”
For the full ISPA comments on the other awards, please click here.
Zen also continues this successful trend at other awards, winning the highly coveted PC Pro Award for Best Broadband ISP for the third year in a row last December. With this and the impressive 3 years for Zen at the ISPAs, the company reflects its ongoing mission to continue to provide the best ISP service in the UK.
Iain Johnstone, Sales and Communications Manager, Zen Internet, commented:
"We are extremely honoured and delighted to have 3 years of success at these prestigious ISPA awards. This emphasises our ongoing commitment to deliver quality, reliability and support with our services. We aim to provide the best technical advice to all our customers, highlighted by the fact we can offer a dedicated Apple Mac support team, which was noted in this year’s awards.”
On Friday 16th March Zen Internet turned its Web site to help raise money for Comic Relief on Red Nose day.
The standard Zen green format was discarded on for one day only and the Zen logo was transformed into a red nose which linked through to the Comic Relief donations page, .
Ian Buckley, Web Marketing Executive, commented;
“Zen has a great sense of corporate and social responsibility shown through our commitment to local charity work .We thought getting involved through our Web site this Red Nose day was a great opportunity and fun way to help increase donations for an important national charity like Comic Relief.”
Zen staff also increased efforts to raise money on the day by turning red themselves, with employees in the office wearing red clothing and donating to Comic Relief.
Sam Wall of the ZenPartner team dressed up as a Commando to help raise money by visiting all three of Zen’s buildings. The total amount raised from Sam’s efforts was £171.00.
Zen Internet has launched two highly competitive Windows hosting products, ideally suited for professional hosting services and Web design and development.
The Windows Web Designer package provides all the key tools a Web designer would need to create and manage Web content. The Windows Web Developer package is a complete development environment with support for two, fully independent database driven Web sites. All of this is backed by a resilient, powerful hosting environment built by expert Zen Windows MCSE, MCSA and MCT certified engineers.
The Windows Web developer package uses a Microsoft 2005 database server to give customers access to the latest Microsoft database development environment at a price that is unmatched by any competing product in the market place. No other Web host provides MS SQL 2005 database support at this price point or with this type of product.
The Windows Web Developer package also comes with a shared SSL certificate as standard, enabling customers to host secure Web sites such as E-shops and E-commerce Web sites.
Both packages come with generous and competitive disk quotas and network transfer rates. Additional network bandwidth is available to purchase should it be required.
The Windows Web hosting packages are not just for developers, but also ideally suited for customers wanting a professional, reliable hosting environment for their Web site.
For more information please click here.
Rochdale Online recently hosted their second annual awards night at Rochdale Town Hall.
Three hundred people packed into the magnificent Great Hall for an evening of food, wine, music and dancing with friends and colleagues to celebrate business and community in Rochdale.
The judging panel was made up of John Kay (Senior Partner of Molesworths Bright Clegg Solicitors and a Director of Rochdale Online), Malcolm Journeaux (Founder and major shareholder of Rochdale Online) and Kate Bailey (RMBC Communications Manager).
Each winner received a unique piece of Blanthorn glass specially commissioned for the awards.
After the meal and the presenting of the awards, a raffle took place to raise funds for the Rochdale Connections Trust, which is a project designed to reintegrate young people back into education, training or work.
The young people may have issues with family relationships, drugs and alcohol, mental health problems or other difficulties which mean that they are disaffected. Funds such as these are especially welcomed by the trust, as they rely on the generosity of the local community and businesses to support the charity.
The night was a great success and fun was had by all!
Rochdale Online is an important source of local information in the Rochdale area, and their web site covers many areas from local news to sport and entertainment.
The business recently reached Platinum status as a ZenPartner, and their account manager Tim Maltman was delighted to present them with a plaque to represent this.
ZenPartner Induction Training
Two Induction sessions were held in February, one at The Memorial Stoop in Twickenham and the other at our headquarters building in Rochdale.
Attendees venturing over to Twickenham on the 1st February were as follows:
Mat Walker - SCIP
Mark Prince - Rovatek Computers
Nick Hulm - Metz Services Ltd
Robert Dolphin - APR Network Services
Alison Bell - APR Network Services
Jonathon Young - MBD Solutions
Andrea Stansfield - MBD Solutions
Rijk Van Ser Merwe - Vooma Limited
Everyone found the session really useful, even though they had been a partner for a few months (or years in some cases) attendees discovered that they didn’t know all of the products and services that were available for re-sale through the programme.
Feedback included the fact that attendees found explanations of the commission levels and how to place orders through the portal really useful. In addition to this, having knowledge about exactly why our products are better than many others and the reasons behind why when discussing prices etc with customers were found to be of use. This helped attendees to feel more confident when discussing our products with customers in more detail.
Attendees for our other training sessions at the Zen Headquarters were;
Induction Training Event 28th February
Andy Humberston - 3Tech Systems
Paul O' Hagan - See 20/20
Ivor Ellis - Ellis Combined Technologies
Toby Jenkins - Ellis Combined Technologies
DSL Diagnostics Training Event 14th March
Luke Moore - CCT Infotech Ltd
Andy Dibble - CCT Infotech Ltd
Induction Training Event 28th March
Mark Farrell - ITAcads Ltd
Neil Richardson - TPK Data Solutions Ltd
To compliment the training sessions there are a whole host of materials and tools to assist, check out the training downloads section on the Partner Web Site. The latest document is this price cheat sheet which you can download and keep handy on your desk.
DSL – Initial Diagnostics event at Regus Hatfield
On Thursday 26th April we are holding a DSL – Initial Diagnostics event at Regus Hatfield. Attendees of this course will be able to carry out all required initial diagnostics and be able to explain why they have to be carried out to customers. See AGENDA for more information.
In addition we are holding another Induction event back at Twickenham Memorial Stoop on 3rd May 2007, if you are able to attend as a new (or existing ) partner. Please see link for agenda, directions and booking form.
To see any new additions to the training schedule you can check on the ZenPartner website (as usual you will need to be logged in).
Feedback
If there are any products or areas of Zen that you would like to attend a training session on, i.e. if you are thinking of moving from just reselling broadband, to providing hosting for customers as well but aren’t sure of where to start, please send your enquiries to training@zenpartner.com or speak to your Account Manager and we can look at supplying tailored training for your requirements.
Get In Touch
Everyone can benefit. It doesn’t matter if you are a techie or a newbie. Get in touch with Gill Cummings our dedicated Training Co-ordinator, for more information on the course that’s most relevant to you.
To celebrate the launch of Zen’s Office 8000 and Office 8000 Max products, Zen ran a competition for all its Partners.
Points were awarded for new activations and upgrades for the Zen Office 8000 and Office 8000 Max and the Partner who accumulated the highest number of points throughout the 8 week promotion won a weekend break for two.
Bronze ZenPartner Stickman Technology Ltd were the winners of the competition, and so the whole company could benefit from the prize, Dr Adam Case, founder of the company has decided to take the whole team on a team building day paint balling!
The competition was a great success and thank you to all who participated.
The Saddleworth IT company meets the Spanish wine-maker
On the face of it a Saddleworth based IT solutions company would not have much in common with the vineyards of Northern Spain, but in the case of Gold ZenPartner Pradoray IT Solutions that is not the case.
Dave MacDougall the founder of Pradoray IT Solutions, was looking for a name for his new business four and a half years ago and decided to base name it after his favourite tipple PradoRey So an ‘e’ became an ‘a’ and PradoRey the wine became Pradoray the IT solutions company.
Pradoray IT Solutions is now a successful business providing support to many businesses large and small around the Greater Manchester area, installing and supporting computer networks. In addition they have just launched PradoSafe an innovative new product that cleans all spam and viruses from email Inboxes before they arrive at the customer’s server.
Phil Garrett owner of Wino’s of Oldham, mentioned to the UK representative from PradoRey wines that that he had a friend who had named his company after the wine and PradoRey were so impressed by this story that the director of the vineyard flew to the UK to meet Pradoray.
To mark the occasion, Charles Brierley of The White Hart Lydgate, organised an afternoon of wine tasting, inviting along other local landlords to enjoy an afternoon of good wines and good company.
Dave MacDougall commented:
“It was a great to meet Angela and spend an afternoon of wine tasting and socialising—and I’ve even been invited to go and stay on the Spanish vineyard!"
You all speak with them, whether it’s daily or only now and again. But who are these wonderful people really? Once again, ZenPartner News steals a few minutes with a member of the ZenPartner team...
Full name: Sam Wall.
Age: 26.
Postion(s): Partner Account Executive.
Length of time with company: 3 years.
THE QUESTIONS
Where are you from originally?
Oldham, hence my dark Mediterranean complexion … ahem
What were you doing before you joined Zen?
My MSc at Salford University and a selection of the most mind-numbing, ‘character-building’ agency jobs available – just think 'life of grime'!!!
What are your 3 favourite Web sites (clean please)?
www.google.co.uk - The world’s best spell-checker / lifesaver
www.national-lottery.co.uk - One day !!!!!
www.astonmartin.com - See above…
Which album /single do you have in your stereo?
Driving Rock Anthems… the travelling salesman’s favourite. Nothing beats looking like an idiot than weaving through the traffic in the morning with Danger Zone blaring out
Which football team do you support?
None. I’m a dab hand at Pro Evo on the xbox360 though if that counts?
What is your favourite childhood TV programme, and why?
Thundercats.. Timeless, soundtrack rocked and many a valuable life lesson at the end of each episode!
If you could be any one else for a day who would it be and why?
Any member of Oasis – just to be in the best band in the world for a day! Cue offensive feedback!
What was your best Christmas present?
Union Jack Supernova Guitar signed by Noel Gallagher - woo hoo!!
Do you have any bad habits?
Can’t think of anything bar the ‘perfectionist’ joke in Trainspotting so I’m sticking with that one for the time being.
What was your first computer?
48k Spectrum - half my youth wasted with 5 minute loading times!
Thanks Sam, and that concludes the inspirational interview with this month’s ZenPartner team member.
Gold ZenPartner Samarind Ltd is celebrating twenty years of success in the IT business by winning a number of prestigious new contracts.
The company was started by Sadik and Miranda Pothiawala in 1987, initially trading from their home office in Little Sutton, South Wirral. Over the past twenty years, Samarind has gone from strength to strength with Sadik, Miranda and fellow Director, Richard Whittaker, now employing eighteen full time staff at their handsome offices in Deeside Industrial Park, with plans to double the size of the company over the next three years.
Samarind started with two main streams of business; Sadik designing data networks and Miranda developing bespoke software. These two areas of business formed the basis of the company and they continue to thrive today. Renowned as a forward thinking company, Samarind has extended its service offering in recent years to include web based solutions, which has given the company a competitive edge within the IT sector.
Samarind has recently won several prestigious contracts including the development of a set of bespoke systems for The Association of Plumbers and Heating Contractors (APHC) who run an essential element of the Competent Persons Scheme on behalf of the Her Majesty’s Government. From June 1 2006, anyone selling a house in the UK will have to provide prospective buyers with a Home Information Pack (HIP). The HIP will include proof that any essential work on the property has been carried out by a professional contractor, accredited under the Competent Persons Scheme.
Sadik Pothiawala, Managing Director comments:
"The most satisfying thing about this project is that we've effectively brought together all aspects of our business to successfully deliver a complex solution. The fact that we have been able to deliver measurable cost savings to our customer as a result is also very satisfying and is a big statement of our capabilities. When Miranda and I set out in business twenty years ago, we never really imagined delivering such a high profile solution. We’re very proud of this achievement and we look forward to another twenty years of success."
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Michelle Jackson of Zen presents Karl Gresty of RTL (Retrospective Techniques Ltd) with their Gold status plaque |
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George Philp of ByteBack Systems (UK) Limited is presented with a Platinum status plaque |
The ZenPartner team would like to say congratulations to those partners who have moved up levels in the programme this quarter meaning an increase in the resources available to them and a move towards a more strategic commitment.
These were:
Gold to Platinum:
ByteBack Systems (UK) Limited
Oxford Macintosh Solutions Limited
TCN Limited
The Networking Company
Andromeda Trading Limited
Silver to Gold:
Emergency5 Limited
Meteor Web Marketing
Frimton Computers
Microcomms Limited
Scott IT Limited
Inspired IT
Pradoray Limited
Sygen Limited
Moray Office Supplies Limited
Armstrong Communications PLC
Direct Data Systems
Bronze to Silver:
Marke PC Solutions
PCB Group Limited
Allteks Limited
Bell IT Associates Limited
Dataflow IT Limited
Gregory Micallef Associates Limited
Santikara Limited
PayChannel Limited
Cheshire Telecom Limited
Nomical Limited
Quell Systems Limited
Satis Information Systems Limited
Time Communications Solutions Limited
Keep up the Good work!
George Bradbury and Phil Alton of Platinum ZenPartner, Pennine Telecom Ltd fought the Arctic wilds in a 200-kilometre dog sledging expedition in Norway.
The challenge was to not only guide their own fully-laden sleds, but also look after their team of huskies. George and Phil have raised in total £6,750 for the Scott Polar Research Institute, which is researching global warming.
Unfortunately George and Phil were unable to book on the same expedition, but they were lucky to both get a place, as only two expeditions are organised each year.
George set off for the challenge in February and Phil in March.
The Pennine pair flew to Oslo and then to Alta, well inside the Arctic Circle. For six days they endured temperatures down to minus 35 and up to a balmy minus 5 degrees as they guided their sleds across the Norwegian Finnmark
The two mushers were inspired to take up the challenge by one of Pennine’s clients, Phil Jeffs, who took part in the expedition last year.
Phil commented:
“I thought it was a really worthy cause and a good way of giving something back at the same time as experiencing something really different”.
Celebrating a successful year of sponsorship as well as gaining the best ever results for the British team at the recent World Championships, Open Source IT provider and Gold ZenPartner, 3aIT Ltd Ltd are the technology co driving British Bobsleigh in a £165k sponsorship deal.
The “3a-Comms” system has put the Team on the right track, after recently gaining the best ever World Championship result and is tipped to have a significant impact on the Team’s prospects for Vancouver 2010.
As part of the first tranche of the deal, 3aIT has delivered a fully featured website – http://www.bobteamgb.org, and intranet, securing outstanding search engine visibility for the Association. Development of the site is ongoing with additional functionality planned for delivery right up to the Vancouver Games.
Incorporated into the site is a web-based system that enables the team to keep in touch with each other, their specialist coaches, their headquarters and their families while they travel around the world during their 5-month tour of ice training and competition. The same 3a-Comms System enables World Class athletes to train at home during the off-season with daily on-line training schedules, feedback and monitoring.
Roger Clark, the CEO of 3aIT cites the professionalism of the Elite athletes as the hook that secured his companies’ involvement:
“Bobsleigh is infectious – there’s no doubt about that, and it’s an outstanding vehicle for corporate hospitality with tangible returns on sponsorship investment. We are 100 per cent committed today as we were a year ago.
Primarily our decision was based on the belief that – given the right support – we have in our top athletes the ability to take on the world. If World Class Performance requires world class support services then 3aIT and its partners are committed to delivering those services for the next 5 years.”
The ZenPartner Programme provides a full, detailed welcome pack as a reference point for all partner information, which is now available on CD.
The pack contains up-to-date information on key topics such as ordering online, faults/support processes, payment and billing, and commission structures with an additional section on resources such as a full training programme. The pack also features the latest price lists for all products and services from Zen available to partners through the ZenPartner Programme and a complete list of contacts.
The pack is updated regularly and there have been lots of updates since last month. For all the latest information please visit the member’s area on the ZenPartner Web site under Marketing and download the latest version of the pack.
If you would like a copy of the ZenPartner Welcome Pack, please contact the Partner Team with your company’s details at info@zenpartner.com or alternatively contact your Account Manager.
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